The Carnations of Lisbon It Is a Few Minutes Past Midnight When A
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The carnations of Lisbon It is a few minutes past midnight when a Portuguese commercial radio station, Radio Renacença , defying prohibitions and bans , broadcasts a song of a “forbidden” author. That song celebrates a little town in Alentejo, Grandola, once inhabited by the Moors and now Terra da fraternidate , land of brotherhood . A little town in which, at every corner, you can find a friendly face and into which o povo , the people, is who takes decisions. 1 In many military quarters, the voice of José “Zeca” Afonso-- a strong and clear, sweet and melancholy voice-- is overcome by the noise of the armoured cars engines. The time to go has arrived. The captains’ hands are not sweating anymore , the masks have fallen, the situation does not admit compromises ( or with us or against us): a secunda senha , the second signal, the definitive signal has been ordered, there is no time for rethinking. Captain Salgueiro Maia’s column, left Santarém, heads at full speed to Lisbon. At a certain point, it meets a red light: it stops, waits for the green light and then takes its march again. Strangeness and legends of a revolution. “Toquio” ( the radio “ Emissora National ”) and “Monaco”( the national TV) are occupied without any accident. Then it’s the turn of “Nuova Yorque” , the Portela airport. From the frequencies of Radio Clube , one time Berta da Parede’s kingdom and now in the hands of the rebels- a first communicate is broadcasted. It is 4:30 in the morning. The citizens of Lisbon are invited to stay in their homes and to keep calm; the commanders of the paramilitary forces ( Portuguese Legion, GNR, Pide) are invited to avoid every struggle with the Armed Forces; the physicians are invited to get the hospitals, as preventative measure. The Radio Clube ’s speaker is who reads the announcement, the officers of the MFA are those who compose the text of the announcement. Writer and Nobel Prize José Saramago tells he felt a skipped heartbeat and a big joy, as he heard those few words and a voice speaking of libertaçao do Pais , liberation of the Country. A little over one month from the events of Caldhas, the Dragões are playing their game again. The rebels’ armoured cars burst into the Terreiro do Paço , go up the streets of Lisbon again and head towards Rua Cardoso, when the PIDE has its seat, and towards the Carmo military quarter, where Caetano has found shelter. Just off the coast, a military corvette, the Gago Coutinho , is at anchor, her guns threateningly pointed towards the city. An armoured column of troops that are loyal to regime is going down towards the Terreiro. Captain Salgueiro Maia, with his hands outstretched , goes to meet it. According to a romanticized version, the young lieutenant at the head of the column, says: “ I have been ordered to open fire against you and your men, but the only thing I’d like to do is to laugh.” Then he extends his right arm and opens the palm of his hand. Immediately, Maia’s soldiers surround the tank number five: inside there is the unit’s commander, a colonel. He goes out with his hands up. The realty is somewhat different, the struggle can burst at every moment. But when they must decide, the soldiers loyal to regime lower they weapons and join the rebels. At 9:00 a.m. the people crowd into the streets. Those who look at the harbour, see the corvette turning up her guns: she will not shoot. From his quarter in Pontinha, major Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho – the architect of the military plan- has spoken clearly: if you open fire, we will do the same with the guns positioned close to the statue of Cristo Rei . Celeste Caeiro a tiny forty –year-old is going from Rossio to Chiado when she meets Maia’s soldiers. In her hand, she has some flowers. The restaurant in which Celeste works as maid celebrated its first anniversary and it had planned to offer some flowers to the customers. But in that day the restaurant had not opened. In the streets there were too much animation and a lot of soldiers. Celeste had been sent home along with her colleagues. The restaurant owner had told them to take with them even those flowers, by now useless. Celeste approaches the soldiers and asks them what are they doing in that place with weapons in hands. One of them replies: we are doing the revolution. Then, less solemnly, he asks her a cigarette. Celeste does not smoke and thus she offers to that soldier the only thing she is carrying: a flower. Take this carnation, she says to him, you will gift it to anyone you choose. The young soldier takes the carnation and puts it into the barrel of his automatic rifle. Other comrades follow his example. Celeste’s carnations finish into the barrels of the rifles, in the belts or in the hair of other soldiers. Lisbon is painted red: the red of the carnations , but even the red of the blood. From inside the seat of the PIDE someone shoots the crowd: one dead and a dozen of wounded. The Portuguese marines find and block a secret passage inside the palace; admiral Americo Tomàs, president of the Republic, reaches the military quarter of Monsanto, close to Portela airport; Caetano negotiates his surrender directly with Spìnola . When he leaves the Carmo, into an armoured car, the crowd whistles and screams. He will go, with the military honours, at first to Madeira and then to Brazil . And in the meanwhile, in the streets close to the jail of Caixas, the cars, using a kind of Morse alphabet are blowing with their horns: “Caetano derrubado ” , Caetano wiped out. In the whole Country the situation is under control, the success almost complete. Only some men of the PIDE are withstanding in their quarter in Rua Cardoso. At 9:15 p.m. other shots, other dead: four and more than fifty wounded. Finally, even the PIDEs give up and surrender. In less than sixteen hours disappears a dictatorship that lasted since nearly fifty years. Despite the “seriousness of the hour” , life in Portugal does not stop. The soccer championship, for instance, is not stopped and the Benfica , pride of the Portuguese football, wins 7-0 the Olhanense . After the Olhanense , even the carnations will wither, but by now Portugal has changed. 1 On March, 29 ,1974, a concert took place in Lisbon, at Coliseu dos Recreios. A lot of singers participated. The concert ended with the playing of Gràndola Vila Morena by the author himself, José Zeca Afonso. The spectators in the Arena stood up and sung with the author Gràndola Vila Morena, ironically the only Afonso’s song allowed by the censors. At the end of the concert, while the spectators were going out from Coliseu, many screams “ Down the repression”, “ Abaixo a repreçao” ,were heard. That evening, Afonso’s repertoire included other songs, but the censorship did not allow to play them. Among these songs there was even “ Venham mais cinco!” ( freely translated: five ones again, a song full of innuendos about Salazar) , that the MFA, at the start, would have wanted to choose as signal of the uprising. The censorship’s intervention and the reaction of the spectators at Coliseu made fall the chose on Gràndola Vila Morena. .